Malmeasurement is my word for when organizations use the wrong measures. I’ve written about it before, for instance, here.

The crux of the idea is that by using the wrong measures, organizations automatically get off track because the results are meaningless.

Last week I was talking to a doctor, an internist. She said that her practice, like most around the country, have stopped doing rounds at hospitals. They are kept abreast of their patience progress by hospitals, but have separate realms.

I was horrified by this. Your internist is your regular doctor, the one who actually knows you as a healthy person, and may have years of experience treating you. And they are not primarily involved in your care when you are hospitalized.

“Does it work?” I asked her.

“It works great,” she said, “We all have access to the same information and the specialists do what they do best.”

And then she continued.

“Of course, the patients hate it.”

Ah, now we’ve moved from malmeasurement to matterness (and, yes, I do like making up words!)

The reason for the change in who cares for patients in hospitals is explained in a blog post by a doctor. He writes, “…primary care physicals can maintain a busy outpatient practice without the burden of having to round on patients while they are admitted.”

We patients are seen as a “burden.” Hmm, funny way to create a health care system. In a revolving door health care industry, I imagine that there are people who ambivalent about seeing an internist with whom they may not feel any connection.

But for other people, like me, who take a great deal of care in choosing their physicians, and want desperately to think that they have built a relationship with someone who has seen them in a paper gown year after year, the idea that any doctor will do just won’t do.

We patients matter. Doctors and hospitals that want to pretend that streamlining and efficiency are the best measures to use for health care are simply wrong. The first and primary measure that should be used is: do patients feel cared for in our system?

I hope you didn’t miss the extraordinary eulogy the President gave a few weeks ago in the wake of the abhorrent massacre at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Charleston, SC. Nine people were killed while in Bible study class with only hatred as a flimsy rationale by the shooter, Dylan Roof.

The eulogy was both personal and profoundly universal, with the president talking about the power of Grace, of basking in the glory of a power larger than ourselves that enables to forgive and provide solace to others. And, as you well know, he sang the historic hymn of Amazing Grace, as proud as it was imperfect. Here, watch (better, watch the whole speech):

Donovan X. Ramsey wrote a thoughtful essay about the President’s eulogy entitled, “President Obama: Talk to Black America Not At Us.” Ramsey captures the feeling that many people had watching the speech that this was the President we have been waiting for. Not the timid one, or the Professor in Chief, or the worn down president with a small “p” who never really wanted a battle with the opposing party. This was the one that we have seen in such brief moments; in mid-2007 when he invited people to shape his campaign with him rather than just write checks like the second campaign. This was the hope: that we would all participate equally, passionately in shaping this presidency.

Unfortunately, more often, the President and his team hid behind closed doors, wrote code for a disasterous health care site done by bureaucrats when an army of open-source coders stood ready to help. Backed down from open town hall meetings with pro-marijuana activists refused to be overlooked.

Part of what made this eulogy so powerful was how infrequently we have seen this President. The one who is with us, a part of us, not working and talking at us. This is also the essence of leading with a Matterness lens. No one is waiting out there for some leader to give them marching orders. We are ready, willing and able to jump to action, when we are asked to participate in meaningful ways.

Ah, well, the Obama years are almost over. Maybe, someday, we’ll get a leader who stops working at us.

The title of this post is the title of a post written by Darren Walker announcing the future direction of the Ford Foundation. It is a very compelling, exciting and clarion vision. The one area that really caught my attention was the commitment he makes to anchor organizations.

He writes, “…we have decided to invest in organizations as partnersâ€”and to give them the kind of trust, flexibility, and additional supports they need to do their best work. As incubators for both individuals and ideas, organizations are essential to developing a robust ecosystem of actors addressing inequality around the world.”

There is a lot packed into this paragraph. The first is the commitment to organizations over people. This notion is repeated several times in Darren’s post, his mantra is institutions, individuals, and ideas. Institutions first, always. Of course, this makes sense as a traditional grantmaking institution, Ford gives grants to institutions, so they had better be good ones. But I do wonder if there is an understanding within Ford of the changing role of organizations as platforms for connecting people to one another and engaging networks of people in problem solving rather than in the traditional fortresses that Ford has invested in?

And how will these organizations be “partners” with the foundation? One of my most memorable experiences with my program officer from the Packard Foundation when I received my first grant from them. I had just started Innovation Network. “I am so excited to be your partner!” I shouted to my program officer (in the way that only twenty-somethings can do.) She took a deep breath and said, “I’m not your partner, I’m your funder.”

She wanted to make the boundaries of our relationship very clear. We would never be equals, she told me, it was not possible, because of the inherent power differential between check writers and check receivers. And she was right. They invested very generously, for three years, and then they were done, and I was left to scramble and find someone else to pick up the tab (that is the definition of nonprofit sustainability, by the way, finding the next donor/funder to write a check.)

The history of foundations as “partners” with their grantees is a road littered with the corpses of good intentions gone bad. Darren specifically emphasizes that he wants his institution to distinguish between making a grant successful versus making an grantee successful. And yet, it has very rarely been done.

Why? Because it requires grantees to be willing to share real problems and foundations willing to accept them. Unless Darren changes the DNA of the foundation, where learning is rewarded even if it looks like failure, it will not be possible for program officers to accept bad news from grantees. Therefore, they won’t get bad news.

I am delighted that Ford wants to invest heavily, and with general operating support, in essential organizations. Hurrah! But the biggest questions remain. Who defines effectiveness and sustainability? What will learning look like and what will Ford’s tolerance be for hearing what they traditionally have thought of as bad news?

And here’s my big, big question: Exactly what kinds of organizations are Ford aiming to sustain? Not what do these organizations do, but how do they operate? Will the foundation continue to invest in fortresses, as their history suggests, or are they going to push towards more networked models that will make these institutions more porous, more engaged with their own communities, shaped more like social networks than stand alone hierarchies.

Ford does not have a history of helping to support more networked organizations, but there is an enormous opportunity for them to take the lead in doing so now. My fingers are crossed that they will!

According to a Pew study, the Millennials are finally here, making up a majority of employees. According to the Pew Center, Millennials now make up 53.5% of all workers, compared to 52.7% for Gen Xers and 44.6% for Boomers.

Pew also released a study on attitudes by Millennials (people born after 1980) about work, institutions, religion, politics…well, about life in general. For those of us who have been terribly interested in this enormous generation of digital natives for a while (see my report about Millennials here for the Case Foundation) there isn’t anything new here about their attitudes. They have always been wary of institutions and fiercely independent politically, religiously and philanthropically.

Part of what has makes the discussion of Millennials challenging is trying to distinguish between their unique characteristics and the fact that they are young people. But there are data here that are beginning to harden the picture of how these young people will behave in the future. For instance, the fact that this is the most racially mixed generation makes Millennials much more open to work relationships and friendships with people from different cultural backgrounds (Hurrah, we can stop fighting old fights!) And the fact that they have enormous student debt and came of age during a financial meltdown makes them poorer and more cautious financially than Gen X.

So, now that they are finally here, what changes? What happens to organizations when people inside of these institutions are fundamentally opposed to institutions? What changes the most: the people or the institutions?

I think that last of institutional loyalty, to political parties, causes or employers, is going to have the greatest impact on how we live and work together. It will make politics much more volatile. When the majority of voters are independents, they will vote for people and not parties, causing a constant flipping of legislative bodies between parties. It means that causes like breast cancer will continue to draw a lot of attention, but that donations will largely happen as impulse gives for a campaign that catches someone attention online.

I think this is great. It will require all institutions to work hard to, well, make people feel like they matter!

We discussed his research on the use of metaphors and patterns to develop new solutions to problems. Analogical thinking, Holyoak told me, “is one of the hallmarks of human thinking,â€Â It has led to inventions such as Velcro, which an engineer created after noticing the tiny hooks that enabled burrs attach to fur and clothing.

For organizations trying to break out of set patterns, Dr. Holyoak said it is very important to bring people together who have different ways of looking at the world. We too often think of diversity as a reflection of people’s backgrounds and ethnicity, and don’t think enough about different ways of thinking as a key ingredient for creating teams of innovators.

I was asked after a recent Matterness webinar for Wild Apricot about fun and meaningful ways to thank donors.

Great question!

I wrote a few answers for Wild Apricot, but wanted to expand on the issue of thanking donors here. Organizations spend enormous amounts of time and resources identifying new donors for their efforts. One reason why they have to spend so much energy is because so few people give a second time. According to Penelope Burke’s excellent annual survey of donors, 65% of first-time donors don’t give again to the same cause. That’s a lot of lost people! And given that it is so easy to give once online to a cause that moves someone in an instant and that Millennials are more loyal to causes than institutions, this number is likely to increase not decrease.

Thank yous are a large part of the Churn inside organizations. A task to be kept up with, like opening the mail and answering email, rather than an opportunity to a transaction into a relationship. Thanking people with a form letter meant for the IRS just isn’t going to do it anymore. Or worse, thanking someone with a robotic reply that includes another ask for money ain’t gonna cut it.

Donors need to immediately feel like they sincerely matter to an organization, that they are more than a number on a check, that theyÂ have a name and a face and a story. And organizations have to reciprocate by revealing their own personalities and stories to donors as well.

I want to start a dynamic list of fun and interesting ways to thank people that will make them feel like they matter more (indeed that they actually do matter more!) and that will make them more likely to stick with the company/organization longer.

Here’s a start, please add to it:

Handwritten Thank You. Sound old fashioned? Well, it is, but it’s also enormously effective! Of course, many organizational leaders will dismiss this idea as impractical (“Who has the time or manpower?”) And that’s where Matterness come in! By switching to an abundance lens, these leaders will see that there are lots of people who are willing to write notes who aren’t staff. This is a perfect example of a task that can be spread out and make volunteers feel like they matter moreÂ — including board members! Make a Google doc of donors and ask a group of volunteers to sign up to write notes by a certain date to them (and you can give them sample language) The doc will make everyone accountable to each other. I guarantee that the volunteers will enjoy their meaningful job and the donors will feel great about their donation and the organization (real people live inside this cause!)

Invite Donors to an Intimate Social Event. This is from a great list of thank you ideas from Kivi Leroux Miller. Move people immediately from online to on land by including an invitation with the thank you to an in person event. It can be as simple as a casual lunch at someone’s office to learn more or a cocktail party at a board member’s house. A causal, social event where the donor can learn more about the cause and get to know other people who are giving to it and working for it.

Crowdsource Thanks.Lisa Colton shared this really fun story with me. The Band Death Cab for Cutie had a new album coming out. As a fun gesture for their most loyal fans, they wrote out the lyrics to one song and a big canvas, cut it up and mailed the pieces to fans. They asked the fans to take a photo of their piece and post it on Instagram. When all the pieces were put together, their fans got a sneak preview of the lyrics, plus the “super fans” had their original pieces as keepsakes. This could be such a fun way to thank donors or volunteers. Imagine painting a big thank you note signed by the whole staff, then cutting it into pieces and mailing it to a group of people and asking them to upload the pics.

Celebrate Small Donors. We need to even out the over-celebration of the 6 figure gift givers. We have all see the plaques in stores celebrating the Employee of the Month. Why not celebrate small donors of the month? And better, let them tell their own story about why they gave on your blog or Facebook page (or anywhere else!) Donors need to “see” people who look like them and give like them in order to keep giving.

YouTube a Thanks. I was in Des Moines, IA a few years ago when the local credit union was opening a new branch. In order to entice people to stop by, they gave gift cards to people around town and posted videos this fun interaction. Organizations could visit a few donors and give them a handwritten thanks, or a small gift, for their donation and post the video. It will be fun and heartfelt – two things that can never be a bad thing!

People are not expecting extravagant thanks for their donations and efforts, in fact, many people don’t want them, but they do expect to be genuinely appreciated.

So, what fun ways have you tried, or would you like to try, to show your people that they really do matter to you?

Sweet Briar College, a 114 year-old women’s college in rural Virginia, announced its closing due to financial difficulties. According to its website, the board voted to close the college on February 28th — and announced it to the world via press release on March 3rd, before telling faculty, students and alumnae.

The Sweet Briar board did everything they thought they were supposed to do. They examined the problem, ran through scenarios like merging with other colleges or becoming co-ed and came to the conclusion that the only pathway for them was to close the college. And that’s the problem. Their idea of what they are supposed to do is outdated and an abuse of Matterness by purposefully disempowering their key constituents as smart, generous, creative people capable of helping to solve problems.

This board, like so many other nonprofit boards, thought their job was to try to solve every problem in secret behind closed doors. They had been wrestling with serious financial difficulties for years without having open and honest conversations with students, faculty, parents and alumnae about the problems and asking for help. I don’t mean asking for money, I mean asking for help a community-wide strategy to either close or remain open. Instead, the board went through a series of options behind closed doors and announced their decision to close. Of course, there has been a huge backlash from people are who passionate supporters of the college and were taken by surprise by the sudden-feeling decision of the board.

One person interviews in the Times article said, â€œI understand that liberal arts colleges are struggling,â€ she said. Still, she said, the board â€œjust threw in the towel.â€ This is the heart of the problem. No one believes that the Sweet Briar took this decision lightly, however, since no one on the outside was privy to the discussions or decision-making process of the board, the board now faces a tidal wave of anger, disbelief and protest. (Here is the inevitable Save Sweet Briar site.)

Why do boards continue to assume that it is their job to work in secret? Their job, they believe, is to review financial statements, make donations and ask others to do the same, and for gosh sakes, keep things quiet! This expectation is reinforced by the clubby feel of boards- friends of friends are invited to be board members and the last thing most people want to do in such a collegial atmosphere is make waves. Because board members come to their jobs believing that it is expecting, and prudent and smart, to work alone behind closed doors. This is a leadership choice not a necessity for boards; and a bad, outdated choice.

Every time a scandal erupts at a nonprofit organization, look at the board and how it operates. It is likely you will find an opaque culture of secretiveness. The scandal at Marlborough High School in Los Angeles, an elite prep school, is in crisis now because the board chair didn’t believe he needed to share an accusation of pedophilia with the larger board. And I won’t even begin to talk about the cheating culture of sports in higher education!

If nonprofit boards cannot bring themselves to open up their procedures and decision-making, then new rules are necessary to help them begin the process. I propose that nonprofit boards be required to post online:

Real-time financials online. The same P&L statements and balance sheets shared with the board should also be posted online with the agenda for board meetings.

Real-time video streaming of board meetings.

Board minutes

This is just a start. All board rooms, but at least and in particular nonprofit board rooms, need to throw their windows and doors open. If they think that transparency will make their life harder, they should consider how much harder their life will be when their secretiveness leads to a crisis down the road.

Someone recently asked me who I would most like to influence with Matterness. My immediate answer was younger women because they have can craft careers that are better aligned with their values without having to unlearn the lessons from working within fortress that are inherently fear-based and reward ungenerous behavior where the goal is to matter more oneself than to make others matter more.

So, these smart, prepared, professional women are walking into environments that are tilted towards the traditional manly values of competitiveness, always-on and me-firstness that continue to pervade American companies – even if they don’t work, aren’t profitable and make everyone feel terrible. What to do? Take More women than men are graduating with college and advanced degrees; and yet they continue to enter manly cultures where men continue to get paid more and getting ahead faster. And it feels awful. Here is how one friend put it last week:

After our executive presence training yesterday with a client services organization in the financial industry, a half-dozen women came up to us to talk about navigating the strength + warmth balance in a professional context as women facing the double standard of being penalized for showing their strength/competence. All were under 35, and highly educated, polished, and accomplished. …..women told us about the shit they deal with even with younger male colleagues.

We’ve all met that women, the amazing one who has been at the company for 25 years, who shows up more prepared than anyone else every day and knows how to navigate the bureaucracy, hierarchy and sexism of a large company while keeping her humanity intact. She is my hero.Â I certainly couldn’t do it and most women can’t and either level off at a middle management spot and stay there, opt out entirely, or opt half way in and get paid a lot less than they’re worth. But we all need to start somewhere, and that somewhere is generally in fortress that treats everyone inside and out as a potential enemy.

Should you adopt the practices of the place and learn to be work in ways that are unnatural, exhausting and feel terrible? Or should you be your best self, be generous and kind, make other people matter more, regardless of the environmental norms?

So, now I’m asked to give advice to 24 year-old Sammy, two years out of Wesleyan, a world history and women’s studies major. Sammy took a year to travel (lucky her!) did some volunteer work and then buckled down to search for her first real job the one that will pay her one-third of the rent for the walk up in Astoria her mother won’t visit. After thirteen interviews she finally lands her first job, the crappy one, with lots of photocopying and note taking at meetings and even coffee runs.

Here is what I have would advise Sammy(s):

1. The first thing to figure out is what’s the culture and what’s the people. Sometimes it’s awfully hard to pull them apart, but more often, especially in a large place, you can distinguish good people from the bad cultures.

2. See if there is something to learn here. Can you figure out why good people who came to do good work, are behaving badly? What is it about the systems and culture, the incentives and rewards that are forcing people to be short-sighted and selfish?

3. Write it all down because it will give your brain something constructive to do and be a reminder later on of the kind of place you never, ever want to work in again.

4. Hold onto your humanity! Even in the worst cultures, there are opportunities to treat other people well. To thank them by email after a meeting. To give credit to other people (and no, learning how to grab and hold onto credit is not a good long-term career strategy.) To ask for advice and actually have the humility to use it.

5.. In the end, it may be that the best choice is to look for another job quickly. But one thing to remember is that wherever you are going for your next job, the first thing to ask about is about the organizational culture. Make sure that Matterness is built into the DNA of the new place.